Jack Thompson, Spore porn, and more.

For those of you living the lives of busy, important people, here is a rundown of the biggest gaming-related stories of the past week.

Monday: Jack Thompson got a visit from a couple US Marshals in regards to a letter he wrote to a federal judge.  In the letter, he compared himself to detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, and stated, “I guess my ‘mistake’ was not killing 3000 people to make my point.”  The ever-tactful attorney is now furious that the judge sent the Marshals to explain to him the impropriety of such correspondence, and is even complaining to the House Judiciary Committee.  The Thompson saga is becoming like a bad VH1 Saturday afternoon reality show marathon.  I know it’s mindless, and I know it caters to the lowest common denominator…  but I can’t stop watching.

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While it may be fun to design rude creatures, EA doesn’t want them on their servers.

The Spore Creature Creator came out on June 14, give or take a day, and the first thing people did was start designing genital monsters of their very own. Ambulatory penises are the most common, but more creative beasties ranging from Goatse-saurus to creatures that look like copulating people, animals, or a bizarre combination of the two (and probably plants as well) have been popping up all over. Spore Creature Creator is completely freeform, an unrestricted toy to design just about anything your twisted, pervy mind can come up with. It was only a matter of time before the wonderful anything-goes anarchy began to be reigned in.

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Hori will soon release the Real Arcade Pro EX for the Xbox 360.

Just in time for the many fighters coming the 360’s way, Hori is offering (finally!) a quality joystick. Sure many of us have made due with cheaper sticks, but this is the real deal. Next to custom, the Real Arcade sticks are your best bet for arcade quality components at a decent price. Ok, so usually you can get an HRAP for around $100 or a little higher. Well it turns out that this particular stick is exclusive and will be pretty darn rare. National Console Support is selling them for a whopping 218 bucks. Ouch.

Tentative release date is early July. Nice looking stick: http://www.hori.jp/products/xbox360/controller/realarc_pro_ex/ . Not sure if it is worth the price tag, especially when you can get a really nice custom for that, such as my custom (shameless plug but had to give my bro props for making me such a nice stick):

If you’re interested in more about the Hori Real Arcade Pro series of sticks, there’s an excellent FAQ over at SRK: http://forums.shoryuken.com/showthread.php?t=95713

Geeks and otaku and nunchucks… oh my.

It’s been quite an eventful week for Nintendo. First on the docket is an exciting piece of litigation: Nintendo of America Inc. v. Nyko Technologies Inc. Apparently, Nintendo is none too happy with Nyko’s release of their wireless nunchuck apparatus. They are so displeased, in fact, that they are asking a judge to order that the device stop being sold immediately. Oh, and they also want any profits generated from its sale.

But why? After all, third parties have been making controller knock-offs forever. So what makes this different? Perhaps they have their own wireless nunchuck in the works. Perhaps this is meant to be a warning shot for Sony and Microsoft, both of whom have been rumored to have input devices similar to the Wiimote in development. Or perhaps it’s none of the above. Either way, it will be most interesting to see how this pans out.

Now let’s move to some lighter fare.

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Game for free on your little 360.

Okay, it’s not exactly free when you have to pay for Xbox Live, but lately the service has been giving people their money worth with a plethora of free content. I’m not talking just about Xbox Live Arcade, though last week it saw probably one of it’s best releases in some time. Aces of the Galaxy is a sweet on rails shooter with amazing graphics and intense action that’s sure to give your right thumb a workout. You also have Rogoo, a falling block style puzzle game with a cute premise and split second timing. Either one is worth your point bank, but there’s more to play without paying.

You can ignore the Crash Time demo. It’s pretty much awful in every sense of the word as a car chasing game with graphics worse than the accents. Also, you probably shouldn’t bother with the single player portion of the Battlefield: Bad Company demo. If you’ve played Call of Duty 4, you’re bound to be bored with this stripped down imitation. Where the game really shines is in multiplayer, where you can assume a variety of kickass classes like demolitions and blow the hell out of the enemy team, while either attacking or defending your gold supply.

Ninja Gaiden II is a must play. The action is vicious and visceral with four fully maxed weapons to reduce the enemy to bloody chunks. Yep, the camera is pretty bad and the occasional platforming is annoying, but there’s simply no other action game that does decapitation better. Another surprising must play is Civilization Revolution, ironically not coming to the Wii (so far). This is the turn-based empire building strategy game completely redone from the ground up for consoles, and it’s intensely addictive. Build and establish cities, raise armies, ignore the advice of your cheeky advisers, gain new technology, and prove yourself to be the greatest leader the world has ever known. This can be played both offline alone and online against a random opponent, though of course the full game will let you choose to confront your friends. Let’s hope they stay that way.

There’s also a demo of Quake Wars that just popped up, but I haven’t had the chance to try it yet. With this many demos, who needs full games?